Month: August 2017

My Origin Stories series of posts presents interesting characters I’ve created for a variety of games. When I put characters together, I often had more backstory and thoughts on its creation than DMs needed. So I thought it may be a useful exercise to write it out for this blog, and hopefully other players can gain some inspiration from these posts. Previous posts include: Dorn, a D&D 5e Oath of the Ancients Paladin; Badger, a D&D forest gnome rogue; and Arkdo, a Duro archeologist from Star Wars: Edge of the Empire.

This post is about Dain, a gold dwarf priest of the Red Knight, for D&D 5e Forgotten Realms.

Dain is from the gold dwarf lands far to the south of the Sword Coast. He was a bureaucrat in a bustling trade center, where he lived a comfortable, but boring life. One day, a wandering knight from the north arrived in town. Dain struck up a conversation with the outsider at the tavern, and learned she worshipped the Red Knight, goddess of strategy. Dain was entranced by her stories of the intrigue and adventure among the powerful city-states on the Sword Coast, as well as her teachings of the Red Knight. This goddess supported warplanners and strategists, and her priests were in high demand among many of the lords of the north.

Dain, far from impulsive—even by the standards of dwarves—decided he had enough of shuffling papers around and wanted an adventure. He spent the next few weeks preparing for his trip (he was, after all, still a dwarven bureaucrat, and could not avoid planning), then set out in the middle of the night. He sought out news and followers of the Red Knight on his way north, connecting with a group of wandering monks in her service in Athkatla. They pointed him to Baldurs Gate, site of one of her greatest temples.

In Baldurs Gate, Dain studied under the Red Knight’s highest clerics. He found his time as a bureaucrat served him well in his studies, as it gave him a love for planning, order and strategizing. Dain breezed through his clerical training and was ordained as a priest of the Red Knight. He chose to be an itinerant cleric, travelling through the Sword Coast and spreading her teachings.

Eventually, Dain made his way to Daggerford, a smaller member of the Lords Alliance. While drinking in the tavern, he heard two councilors for the town’s ruler—Lady Morwen Daggerford—debating the proper way to press a claim for greater trade revenue from the Lords Alliance. Dain introduced himself, and gave them some advice, combining his bureaucratic skills with the teachings of the Red Knight. The men were sufficiently impressed to introduce Dain to Lady Morwen. She convinced him to join her court as an adviser, tasking him with advancing her interests among the Lords Alliance. Dain did a good enough job that the Lords Alliance voted to make him one of the faction’s agents, sending him abroad to aid their endeavors.

Last week in this continuing walkthrough of D&D’s excellent “Out of the Abyss” campaign, the group made their way from Gracklestugh to Blingdenstone. The group consists of Navarre (half-elf rogue), Varys (half-drow ranger), Zinaella (half-elf paladin), Barakus (tiefling monk), and Brynn (gnome wizard).

After escaping the flooding temple with their new friend Glabagool (a sentient gelatinous cube), the group approached Blingdenstone. The tunnels had been sloping consistently upwards. This part of the journey was uneventful, although they spent one entire day hearing horrid shrieking from side passages. After a few more days, two deep gnomes appeared out of nowhere and ordered the group to halt.

Seeing Topsy with them—and apparently in no danger—they brought the group into an obscured tunnel nearby. They realized this was a deep gnome mine, and soon met Dasco Pickshine, the owner. The group introduced themselves to him, and told him of their journey. Dasco offered to let the group tag along on an ore shipment he had bound for Blingdenstone if they could provide protection.

They agreed, and were about to leave when Zinaella noticed a hand slipping into his pack. He grabbed the would-be deep gnome thief. Dasco was horrified, and Topsy noted how unheard of theft is among the deep gnomes. Dasco motioned to two guards, who proceeded to beat the thief mercilessly. All of the group knew this was also strange. They ran into a bit more trouble when they introduced Glabbagool to the deep gnomes, but they managed to convince them their friend was safe.

Everyone boarded the wagon with the ore shipment, where another deep gnome was waiting. Dasco introduced her as Nomi Pathshutter, who maintained the deep gnome’s earth elemental summoning stations. After hearing of the group’s travels, she told them of Ogremoch’s Bane—an evil force that corrupted elementals. She asked them for samples of any insane earth elementals they encountered.

The group travelled for half a day when suddenly two pools of strange-looking liquid rose up and attacked. They raced to what they realized were ochre jellies, but the group kept slashing at the jellies with their weapons. This caused the jellies to split and multiply, till there were soon over half a dozen attacking them. Eventually the group realized what was happening, switched their tactics, and destroyed all the jellies. Dasco thanked them for their help, and noted that attacks by oozes and the like were increasing in frequency.

They arrived at the gates of Blingdenstone, thick steel doors set high above the tunnel. Guards called down, asking for the group’s names and information. Dasco vouched for them, gaining them entry, but the guards refused to allow a gelatinous cube—even a friendly one—into the city. Glabbaool agreed to wait outside.

The group dismounted, and the cart was moved onto a lift that rose high up the cavern well. They ascended the narrow steps and entered into the gates. Guards led them through a maze pockmarked with murder holes. They then took them a narrow passage with slots for archers at either end.

They were beginning to feel intimidated—with memories of the dour duergar city in their minds—when they entered Blingdenstone itself. It was the first time they truly felt welcome in the Underdark. Warm light illuminated cozy homes dug into the walls, and friendly—but wary—deep gnomes moved about in every direction. Dasco said he had to unload his goods, but pointed the group towards the Traders’ Grotto market and the temple [Navarre wanted to find a way to get rid of his curse].

The group headed to the temple first, and found a friendly acolyte. After listening to their situation, he said the priest could likely help, but was away until tomorrow. While there, they laid to rest the remains of the deep gnome whose ghost they encountered in Gracklestugh. Suddenly, a ghost rose out of the ground. The group was friendly, and soon found out this was one of the deep gnomes who fell in a long-ago battle with the drow. The ghost mentioned some of his fellow ghosts remained lost and hostile, and asked the group to help. After agreeing, they decided to head to the Traders’ Grotto. This was a magnificent area, full of petrified mushrooms of all sizes.

They waded through the crowds and the stalls until they found Werz Saltbaron, the merchant they were tasked with bringing gems to in Gracklestugh. He acted very strangely when they showed him the gems, ordering the group to keep them out of sight. Realizing he was involved in something shady, the group managed to get double the payment he offered.

Heading away from the grumbling Werz, the group stopped short as they saw a deep gnome guard rise into the air. As the crowd around them screamed and ran, they realized what had happened: two gelatinous cubes had broken into the city! The group moved to attack.

They first tried to get the guard free. Barakus stuck an iron bar he had into the cube for the guard to grab, but he couldn’t reach it. Then Zinaella and Navarre tried slashing the cube open, but it kept reforming.

Meanwhile, the cubes had surrounded the group, and one lunged at Navarre, engulfing him. He took significant damage as the cube began to digest him; the group could also see the guard was near death.

They doubled their efforts, focusing on killing the cubes. A series of punishing blows from Barakus and Zinaella, and well-placed arrows from Varys managed to kill the cube containing the guard. He fell forward, nearly dead. Meanwhile, Brynn focused her offensive spells on the cube with Navarre, killing it just as he was about to fall unconscious.

The Traders’ Grotto erupted in cheers as the deep gnomes surrounded the heroes. The guard they saved led the crowd in thanking their new heroes, and the party was carried off to the Foaming Mug, Blingdenstone’s tavern.

The owner gave the group free food and drinks, and they celebrated deep into the night. The next morning, they were awoken at a horribly early hour by an insistent knocking on the door. A young deep gnome told them they were summoned by Senni and Dorbo Diggermattock, the city’s leaders. Fighting off their hangovers, the group headed out into the city.

The Diggermattocks were waiting in the assembly hall, surrounded by guards and retainers. They thanked the group for their efforts. In turn, the group asked for help reaching the surface. The deep gnomes informed them they could lead them to the elf temple they had heard about, which led to the surface, but could not spare any guides now: the city was in danger.

Blingdenstone was under attack by hordes of oozes, as the group had noticed. They needed to figure out why this was occurring or they would be unable to secure the city. Additionally, a group of wererats had seized part of the city. The deep gnomes and the wererats frequently skirmished, further heightening the city’s insecurity. The group offered to do what they could, and the deep gnomes told them of two operations they had planned. [I liked my dialogue here, so I am including it]

Senni said, “one mission would be to investigate the source of the ooze attacks.”

Dorbo, whispered to her, “tell them the name of it, tell them the name.”

The group was tasked with uncovering the source of the ooze attacks, and determining how much of a threat the wererats posed (and whether they needed to be driven from the city).

Before heading out, they stopped by the temple to find the priest. The priest was friendly, although he kept launching into long-winded lectures until his acolyte interrupted him. He said he would like to help rid Navarre of his curse, but was wary of crossing Lolth without more power. Their original temple had been defiled, weakening his connection to their deity. The priest therefore asked the group to cleanse their temple with a spell gem. The temple was in a portion of the city infected with Ogremoch’s Bane, so no one had been able to accomplish this task yet.

The group then set out on their quest. They first visited the wererat’s territory. The deep gnome guards reluctantly opened the doors that barred the passageway, then quickly locked it after the group went through. They sneak forward carefully, coming to a fork. One direction smelled foul, the other less foul, so the group turned in the less foul direction.

Suddenly four poison arrows shot out of the wall, all flying directly at Zinaella. He panicked, and didn’t even try to dodge as they all hit him [really bad dexterity check], causing him to pass out. Four wererats surrounded the group, and moved to attack.

Thinking quickly, the group began trying to talk down the guards. They promised they didn’t come for a fight, and even offered to put down their weapons if they can handle this peacefully. The wererats agreed [good persuasion checks], and took the disarmed group (dragging the limp Zinaella) to their leader.

There the group met Goldwhisker, the portly leader of the wererats. He explained they are deep gnomes afflicted with lycanthropy, and moved to this abandoned area. They resented the deep gnomes’ attempts to steal their territory, especially as they considered themselves as part of the city’s defenses. Specifically, they said they are under constant attacks by oozes and might have to flee soon. This would leave Blingdenstone even more insecure.

Goldwhisker said he wants reassurance that the Diggermattocks will let them live, and he’ll help the city against the oozes. The group agreed and returned to the deep gnome leadership. Unfortunately, the Diggermattocks were not convinced, and needed more proof of the wererats’ willingness to help [bad persuasion checks].

So the group returned to Goldwhisker, and convinced him to give them more to work with. He agreed to take the group through a secret passageway into the ooze-held area, to show them what they’re up against. The group followed, and saw hundreds of oozes gathered in a cavern. Beyond that was a strange-looking deep gnome who seemed to be able to command the oozes. With this new information, the group headed back [I’ll discuss this below, but I got a little lost in the book here—it was unclear how Goldwhisker would show them this, so I improvised]

As they were returning, they heard a voice calling for help from a side passage in broken Undercommon. The group rushed forward, and saw a black pudding advancing on a dust mephit and an earth elemental. The group attacked.

Zinaella, Barakus and Navarre all managed to hit the pudding, but the effects were not what they hoped. Acid sprayed onto all of them as they hit the ooze, injuring them. And when Zinaella slashed the pudding with his sword, it broke into two separate oozes [Barakus used his fists (ouch) and Navarre used the mace they got from Glabbagool]. Brynn, meanwhile, cast a ray of frost at the ooze, which fizzled and did nothing. So Varys showered the pudding with arrows until both halves of it shriveled up and died.

The dust mephit was very thankful. It explained that it and his friend—the elemental—were trying to leave the city when they were cornered by the pudding. They were treated well in Blingdenstone, and wanted to help, so they told the group of some information they had picked up in their travels: the location of Entemoch’s Boon. The pair them headed off into a side passage.

The group then returned to the Diggermattocks and told them what they found. The deep gnomes decided to hold a council, and invited the wererats. Also in attendance were Nomi Pathshutter, the friendly ghosts the group had encountered, the priest and acolyte, and representatives of the city’s armory.

The council quickly realized the seriousness of the threat they faced. The ghosts suggested freeing several of their number from evil influence, and the ghosts could join in. Nomi, meanwhile, argued that more earth elementals are needed, and finding Entemoch’s Boon would help. The priest then chimed in, and suggested cleansing his temple would also help.

The Diggermattocks then turned to the group and asked for their further help. The group agreed, and offered to sneak past the oozes to take care of the Pudding King while the main force of the deep gnomes attacks. They also said they met a nice dust mephit who was friends with all the deep gnomes; at this the assembly burst out laughing at this ridiculous idea [I was getting tired, and thought it’d be funny for no one to know what the group was talking about]. The group brushed this off, and said they had the location for Entemoch’s Boon, at which the assembly was amazed.

The group also pushed the Diggermattocks to let the wererats stay in the city. The leadership was skeptical [the group kept rolling bad persuasion checks]. Eventually, Varys suggested they decide based on pure military necessity; they needed extra personnel and defenses, and the wererats would provide this. This convinced the DIggermattocks, and they reluctantly agreed to peace with the wererats [I let each group member come up with a reason to let the wererats stay and roll persuasion, Varys rolled well].

The council adjourned. The deep gnomes and wererats would begin preparations for the attack. While that was occurring, the group were tasked with helping improve their capabilities. They must find Entemoch’s Boon and cleanse the temple to aid in summoning Earth Elementals, and deal with the hostile ghosts to free up the ghosts to join in.

The group returned to the Foaming Mug for another good meal, and a good night’s sleep in preparation for the…Battle for Blingdenstone!

Just a few closing thoughts on this part of the adventure, as this post is getting long. I stuck with the middle of the road approach to random encounters on the travel; I used the set encounters and then a few random encounters that seemed fun (meeting the Society of Brilliance, the gas leak). This definitely was my preferred route. The set encounters are great, so it would be a shame to miss them. But unless the group really wants a long adventure in which they immerse themselves in the Underdark, I’d be sparing with the random encounters.

Blingdenstone was my favorite of the three settlements the group visited. It had varied encounters and will build to a great climax (unlike Gracklestugh). As I mentioned, I got a bit lost with Goldwhisker telling the group about the Pudding King. That was one of the many areas in which the book may just want DMs to improvise.

Finally, a programming note: my group decided to do one more session with Out of the Abyss then shuffle things up (including giving me a break from DM-ing). I’m running another series of D&D adventures (the multi-level dungeon I mentioned on Twitter), and the group may rotate walkthrough write-up duties, so these posts will continue in a different form.

Last time, our heroes become embroiled in Gracklestugh politics, ended up allied with the powers that be, and were given directions to Blingdenstone, along with permission to leave the city. As usual, we had Navarre (a half-elf rogue), Barakus (tiefling monk), Varys (half-drow ranger), Zinaella (half-elf paladin) and Brynn (gnome wizard). Brynn was absent for the last session (a player was away) but she’ll rejoin the group this time. Also in tow was Topsy, a deep gnome wererat NPC.

The group left Gracklestugh, and had a few uneventful days of travel. The tunnels gradually became less organized and ordered, as signs of the duergar craftsmanship faded into the chaos of the Underdark. As they entered a broad cavern filled with a glowing mist (faerzress), they heard voices up ahead. Barakus and Navarre snuck up, and saw Brynn—who had left the group after Neverlight Grove to travel with the myconids—talking with a derro. This derro was well-dressed and calm (unlike others they had encountered) and appeared to be instructing Brynn in something.

The two revealed themselves, and Brynn introduced them to the Derro, Y. He was a member of the Society of Brilliance, a group dedicated to understanding all of the Underdark. The rest of the group joined them, and they all began catching up on their various adventures.

Suddenly, crossbow bolts shot out of the dark. Navarre and Zinaella were hit, while the others sailed over the group’s heads. Navarre collapsed, while Zinaella fought off what he soon realized was drow poison [the drow pursuit hadn’t really come up yet, so I wanted to use it here]. The group sprung into action [the drow scouts rolled high on sneak, and Navarre failed his Constitution saving throw against the drow poison]

Varys spotted four drow scouts crouched behind a ledge, and began firing arrows to give the rest of the group cover. Zinaella rushed to Navarre to try and wake him, while Barakus teleported through the shadows to reappear behind the drow [he used misty step]. As Navarre groggily opened his eyes, Brynn cast a ray of frost at the drow. The spell fizzled as she cast it, however, and she felt strangely powerful [I rolled on the wild magic table because of the faerzress, and the spell granted her resistance].

Barakus began attacking the drow, felling one. They managed to wound him in their counterattack, although one swung too hard and fell over the ledge, falling in front of the party [he rolled a 1 in his attack]. Navarre raced up to join the fight, while Zinaella rather unsportingly killed the prone drow [I considered penalizing him here as a paladin, but let it slide]. Suddenly a modron, a sentient clockwork being, appeared in the combat and began walking around in circles.

The group found this odd, but focused on their task and quickly killed the rest of the drow. Navarre gathered their poisoned crossbow bolts and grabbed one of the hand crossbows as Y ran up. He explained he had tried to summon the rest of the Society, but the modron appeared instead. Something in the faerzress had been interfering with magic lately.

Y tried again, and the remaining members of the Society appeared. They were a troglodyte, an orc, a mind-flayer, and a kuo-toa. The group didn’t have much time to learn more about this strange organization, as just then the drow priestess who had captured them burst into the cavern, flanked by guards and another priestess.

The Society of Brilliance demanded the drow leave, and not interfere with their business but the priestess was intent on reclaiming her captives. As the drow advanced, the Society worked together to cast a spell, teleporting the drow out of the cavern. Unfortunately, the faerzress caused the party to teleport as well. They reappeared out of sight of the cavern, and the Society.

They decided to continue to Blingdenstone. The group heading through zig-zagging tunnels sloping upwards till they came to a broad plateau. As they crossed it, they arrived at a vast cavern filled end to end with spider webs. Barakus recognized this as the famed Silken Paths [a set encounter]. The group then debated whether to try and cross the Paths, or to find a way around. Varys, Barakus and Brynn voted to cross, while Navarre and Zinaella voted to go around. As majority rules prevailed, they decided to head forward.

The group set out carefully across the webs, trying to stick to the stronger and thicker strands. After a short distance, the entire strand they were walking across snapped. Brynn, Varys and Barakus fell 30 feet, landing on and sticking to another strand of webs. Zinaella and Navarre managed to grab hold of the strands as they broke, but realized they were far from safe. Five giant spiders crawled towards the group, drawn by the vibrations in the web.

As they approached Zinaella and Navarre, they stopped, glanced back and forth between the two, and as one attacked Navarre. Three of them managed to bite him, while he dodged the other two. He was wracked with pain from the bites and the poison, but managed to stay upright. Varys, meanwhile, climbed up the webs to help as Zinaella killed one of the spiders. Once again, however, Navarre’s selfish nature won out and he dove for the lower strand, leaving Zinaella to his fate [he’s a CN character, so does things like this often, although no one called him on it]

The spiders were not interested in Zinaella, however. Two of the spiders leapt down after Navarre, while the other two fired webs at him. Too injured to dodge them, Navarre soon became completely covered in spider webs.

Suddenly, the group heard “Yuk-Yuk and Spiderbait to the rescue!” in goblin-accented Undercommon. Two goblins slid down a series of webs, hurling jars of fire at the spiders as they did. They managed to drive off the spiders, and freed Navarre.

The goblins introduced themselves as “web surfers,” who travelled up and down the Silken Paths. They offered to take the group through for 6gp a day [it was supposed to be 2gp, but the group rolled badly on charisma checks in conversation]. The group agreed, and they set off.

As they did, they discussed why the spiders had fixated on Navarre. Barakus remembered Navarre had stolen gems from the temple of Lolth in the drow camp. They realized they might be cursed. Fishing them out of his pack, Navarre dropped the gems into the ravine.

They traveled a day without incident, although there were a few near misses as party members almost slid off the webs. That night, they stopped in a spot where multiple webs came together, creating a sort of hammock. As he turned in his sleep, Navarre felt something jab him in the side; opening his pack, he found the gems he had tossed away. He did not sleep well that night. The next day was also uneventful, and they traveled carefully through the ravine until resting on filthy rags the goblins laid out over the webs. [I wasn’t rolling anything when I checked for random encounters]

The third and final day, as they neared the other side, Navarre noticed movement up ahead. The entire group hid among the webs, and watched as they saw a spectator—a minor beholder—float through the webs. The group waited till it had passed, they sneaked forward, avoiding its notice [I was a little disappointed, as this would have been a cool fight. Oh well].

Yuk-Yuk and Spiderbait brought the group onto solid ground, took their payment, and “surfed” back through the webs, disappearing from sight.

The group travelled on, eventually coming to a stream that was bordered by beautiful and bounteous mushrooms. They realized the stream must flow into Neverlight Grove. After stocking up on food, they moved on.

The paths they were following sloped downward, eventually opening up into a broad cavern. As they walked forward, the group began to feel woozy. Navarre realized it was natural gas, but Brynn thought the air felt fresh and they should travel on [she rolled a 1 on perception]. Navarre won out, and the group retreated into the tunnel. They decided to fire a flaming arrow into the cavern to ignite the gas, so they could continue [this was a very bad idea, but I thought it would be fun to see through]

The group backed up until they hit a curve in the tunnel, and Varys fired. At first the flame seemed to sputter, when suddenly the entire cavern lit up with flame. A fireball tore down the tunnel towards them, throwing the group against the wall and injuring all of them.

As they stood up, their ears ringing, they heard two things. One was the sound of shouting coming from behind them; they could hear the unmistakable criesof the drow. The other noise was a rumbling coming from above and in front of them, which gradually got louder. They realized the cavern was about to come down around them, so they ran forward just as the drow came into sight.

The ceiling collapsed, and the drow disappeared among the rocks and boulders. The group ran on for a short distance before the tunnel both ahead and behind them collapsed. They were trapped, until they noticed a crack had appeared in the formerly solid tunnel wall next to them. Zinaella grabbed his crowbar and began prying at the crack, and they found a passage beyond it. [this is the Oozing Palace set encounter, which I thought worked well with the cave in]

Moving into the passage, the group realized this was some sort of humanoid-made structure. The corridors were straight, and paved with stones. The walls were covered with decaying tiles. But everything was moist and slimy, with dripping noises echoing faintly around the group.

They moved forward into a larger chamber when suddenly Zinaella screamed out in pain. A grey ooze had dropped onto him, burning his armor. Navarre rushed forward to scrape it off, dissolving his dagger in the process. As the ooze fell on the ground, Zinaella and Barakus—both of whom had magic weapons—hit it until it shriveled up.

The group moved on, but stopped as they saw what looked like a skeleton floating in the passage ahead of them. Suddenly, they heard “who am I? what are you?” in their heads. They soon realized they were looking at a gelatinous cube, but one that could apparently communicate telepathically.

They tried to be friendly, and struck up a rapport with the creature. It called itself Glabbagool, and only recent became self-aware. It told them of its “friends” in the tunnels ahead, and their hunger. When the group mentioned they were heading to Blingdenstone, it said it felt a “call” to that city. [I tried to roleplay this a bit, having Glabbagool act confused about the creatures he was talking with. After one of the group said “like us,” Glabbagool used “us” as a signifier- “you-us,” “me-us.” I think it had the desired effect]

The group moved on. As they entered another larger room, a grey ooze tried to drop onto Varys but missed. They quickly killed it. After that, Glabbagool offered to travel ahead of the group to protect them.

They came to a dead end cavern that was slowly filling up with water. After searching it and finding nothing, they backtracked till they found a narrow passageway. Glabbagool went first. After travelling halfway down the passage he suddenly sunk into the ground. They realized he had fallen into a pit. Glabbagool told them of his “hungry friend” in the pit. Interpreting this to mean another ooze [it was actually a black pudding] they decided to jump over the cube, them have him follow them to block the ooze.

It was a good plan, in theory. Everyone jumped safely over except Brynn and Varys, who fell short and landed on Glabbagool, taking acid damage. He was very apologetic.

Moving on, they found a room with a crumbling fountain in the center and statues in niches along the wall. The group searched the room and found a magic dagger, some gold, and potions in the fountain, but no way out. Thankfully, no one touched the “statues” [which were actually oozes].

They went back to the cavern and saw that it was now knee deep full of water. After deliberating for a bit, Varys boosted Navarre up to look at a crack in the ceiling where water was coming in. He reached his hand through the crack [kind of a risky move, but I decided not to mess with them] and felt more water up above them. The group decided to try and break open a passageway in the ceiling and swim away, hoping they could find dry land. After chipping away at the ceiling, the group members swam up—Glabbagool floated—and realized they were in a gently flowing river. They came to the bank, dried off, and moved on.

My gaming group just finished their latest session of D&Ds’ Out of the Abyss (see latest walkthrough here). They made it to Blingdenstone, and discovered even in this relatively safe city, threats still abounded…I’ll have it up soon. But first…

In this installment in my ongoing Origin Stories series, I want to discuss a character I made for a non-D&D game. As I’ve mentioned, I played Fantasy Flight’s Star Wars RPGs with an old group. These are really fun games that capture a lot of the flavor of Star Wars. This character was for Edge of the Empire, a game setting focusing on the seedier side of the Star Wars Universe (see my walkthrough of an adventure I wrote here). Other settings include Force and Destiny (focusing on force-users, as I’ve discussed) and Age of Rebellion (where you play as part of the Rebel Alliance).

This post is a bit shorter, so I’ll include it all as one post, instead of putting it up over two weeks.

The character I created was Arkdo, the Duro archeologist.

Arkdo grew up on Dantooine; his parents, originally from Duros, fled when the Empire took over and made their way to the Outer Rim. His parents were pilots, helping move cargo through the system and nearby systems and shuttling passengers around. Arkdo helped them out, learning how to fly and astrogate, but he spent most of his time exploring the Jedi ruins on Dantoiine.

During one exploration, he met an old man, who befriended him and taught him much about the ancient Jedi. The man turned out to be a Jedi in hiding, which Arkdo learned when a bounty hunter hired by the Empire found him and killed him. Arkdo then decided to strike out on his own. Getting his parent’s blessing and the meager inheritance they had set aside for him, he set out to make his way in the Outer Rim.

His talents at astrogation and piloting, as well as the skills he gained in Old Republic lore, exploration and archeology, helped him get steady work with the salvagers and treasure hunters who exist at the edge of the Empire [see what I did there?]. Arkdo eventually joined a steady crew hunting for ancient relics to sell to wealthy buyers. On one expedition beyond Subterrell, they found a long-lost Jedi outpost. Among the relics were data on other Outer Rim outposts, which the crew realized would lead them to vast stores of treasure. The crew’s commander knew the Empire had begun collecting all remaining Jedi relics, and thought they could sell this information to the Empire for a lot of money.

Arkdo decided then he would rather be principled than rich. Remembering his Jedi mentor, he resolved to never let this information or the Jedi relics fall into the Empire’s hands. He stole the information and crippled his crew’s ship, before escaping by offering his astrogation services to a smuggler who had landed on the planet. He disappeared into the Outer Rim, his forbidden knowledge guarded carefully, constantly looking over his back for the crew he had betrayed…

Character Creation: Arkdo

This character came about through some good interactions with my GM. When we started playing EOTE, I created a Scout character from the base EOTE rulebook. After playing a session, the GM thought I was going more the route of an archeologist, a character from one of the EOTE expansion books. I checked it out, noticed the illustration was a Duros, and decided I’d play a Duros archeologist.

Character creation is a little complicated in EOTE. It’s a mix of Shadowrun or Firefly/Serenity—when you have a number of points you can use to create customized characters—and D&D, with its set character classes. You start with a career and specialization, like Bounty Hunter-Assassin or Explorer-Scout. Then the race you choose starts off with beginning characteristics (for example, Wookies have high Brawn), and a set number of XP. You choose these XP to build your character through characteristics, skills and equipment.

For Arkdo, as I mentioned I wanted him to be a Duros, and used the Archeologist specialization for the Explorer career (which is part of an expansion pack). I knew I wanted him to be smart and cunning, and also able to use a weapon, so I bumped up his agility (which is used for ranged attacks), intellect and cunning. Most of his skills would go towards his knowledge of lore and the Outer Rim, as well as perception (useful for finding ruins and relics) and survival, for exploring. I gave him a few skill ranks in ranged-light (for things like blasters) as he likely had to defend himself a lot while exploring. Finally, after buying his weapons, I got him equipment appropriate for an archeologist, like macrobinoculars and scanners.

The other cool thing about EOTE character creation is the obligation mechanic. The idea is that everyone exploring the edges of the Empire has some complications in their past. It could be a family they left behind, a debt to a crimelord, or a cause they’re devoted to. These give characters resources, but also lead to complications. At creation, characters choose an obligation, and can add to their obligation value in order to gain more XP or credits to buy equipment. But at the start of every session, the GM rolls dice based on the party’s total obligation value; if the roll comes up right everyone faces some adverse consequences. It’s a cool way to introduce risk into the creation process.

I chose the betrayal obligation, and bumped it up a bit for more equipment. As I was creating Arkdo, I was thinking of his backstory, and the betrayal option inspired me to come up with his introduction to adventuring I discussed in the previous post.

Arkdo ended up being fun. He was not as cutthroat or mercenary as others in the party, since he saw himself as a noble figure trying to gain knowledge of the past. And he was obsessed for searching every market or ruin for relics of value. But his knowledge of ancient sites and Outer Rim societies and governments came in handy pretty frequently.

This was a good example of coming up with a general idea for a character, and then letting the mechanics flesh it out.